So not only did I forget it’s book club night—more importantly, I forgot it’s my night to host.
I gesture for them to enter, and a small stampede of seventy-year-old women charges into my tiny living room.
The septuagenarians are followed by Cristina. “I tried to call you,” she says as the women pull Stone aside and pepper him with questions.
Clarice interrogates him first. “What’d you think of the book?”
He plows his fingers through his hair. “Well, I—”
Another says, “Did you know who the killer was? Did you guess it?”
“Um, I wasn’t—”
“Do you want to be our dead body?” Clarice asks.
The women gasp with excitement.
Stone hears this and his brows pump with mischief. He bows with a flourish. “It would be my honor to be your dead body.”
The women cheer with delight and Stone laughs. His eyes shine bright and a lopsided smile smears across his face.
He looks genuinely happy, genuinely delighted. Genuinely pleased.
All these genuine emotions wafting off him confuse the hell out of me.
My mind spins as something inside me shifts.
There isn’t time to poke and prod the feeling, because the ladies begin bossing Stone around, asking him to push the furniture against the walls and move lamps.
Clarice calls over her shoulder to me, “Where’s the police tape?”
“In my car.”
“Well, it ain’t doing no good out there. Bring it in here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Cristina follows me outside. Daffodils sprinkle both sides of the garden walkway. The yellow blooms inside the white petals make me swell with happiness.
“So,” my friend says after I pull the slightly melted tape from the trunk of my car.
“So, what?”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “What is he doing here?”
“I couldn’t just leave him in his trailer all by himself.”
“So you brought him to your house.”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know.” She leans her hand against the car. “I guess he shouldn’t be alone.”
“My thought exactly.”
“Have you found the flower?”
“I haven’t had a chance to search.”
